1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a photography apparatus having a function for controlling light emission from an auxiliary light source such as a flash at the time of photography and to a photography method therefor. The present invention also relates to a program for causing a computer to execute the photography method.
2. Description of the Related Art
There has been known a camera that enables automatic setting of a flash if necessary by predicting how a shadow appears based on direction and strength of sunlight before photography (see U.S. Pat. No. 6,314,241). The camera described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,314,241 has an imaging device for shadow detection under a glass window located in an upper part of the camera. The camera predicts a manner of appearance of shadow changing with direction of sunlight and weather, based on a position and density of a shadow of a black mark formed in the glass window. The camera then controls a photography condition by operating a flash circuit according to a result of the prediction so that no shadow is cast on a subject.
However, the camera described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,314,241 needs special hardware.
Meanwhile, in the case where black compression is observed around a subject or white compression is observed in the background due to presence of backlight at the time of photography with a silver-salt film camera, the subject or the background can be corrected during printing processing because of information remaining on the film. However, a subject has less information in the case of photography with a digital camera than in the case of a silver-salt film camera. Therefore, once black compression or white compression occurs, information on a part of the compression is missing in an image, and the part cannot be corrected later. For this reason, appropriate flash control is desired according to a condition of lighting for a subject.